18,000. That’s the number of the restaurants around the world that have already taken shark fin soup off their menus. The restaurants, which include such high-end global chains as Shangri La, Marriott International and InterContinental, have done so in response to a global campaign that originated in Hong Kong. The campaign is driven…

Last year, in a development that shocked animal lovers, Sumatran rhinos were officially declared extinct in Malaysia. Yet, judging from a footprint that has just been spotted in Sabah’s Danum Valley Conservation Area, a few last specimens of the gentle beasts might still be hiding out in local forests. During a…

Sea turtles in Melaka are losing out to a usual suspect: relentless coastal land reclamation. Sandy dunes and beaches are being bulldozed and razed to make way for new luxury hotels, upscale condominiums and flashy beachside shopping malls, leaving turtles with precious little space in which to lay their eggs….

To protect Malaysia’s wildlife and environment, you have to invest in them. That is the gist of a call by Dionysius Sharma, who is executive director and CEO of WWF-Malaysia, on the country’s government. “Fiscal measures need to be put in place to assist the State governments in setting aside forests…

A wild bull elephant that trampled a middle-aged worker to death at a timber plantation in Tawau, Sabah, is now himself dead. The animal was shot and killed by an official of the Sabah Wildlife Department. Justice done? It depends how you look at it. The department’s director Augustine Tuuga explained…

In its newly released Living Planet Report 2016, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has painted an alarming picture of the impending prospects of the planet’s wildlife. Unless we change course, the numbers of wild animals will have declined by a staggering 67% by the year 2020, a mere…

Plenty of Malaysians still love their shark fin soup, but not as many as used to do. The local consumption of shark fins has fallen almost by half over the past six months, according to the World Wide Fund For Nature’s Malaysian chapter (WWF-Malaysia). That is certainly something to celebrate….

To save sharks, we have to know and understand sharks. Appreciate them more too. That’s the message behind a government-sponsored campaign in Perak, which seeks to educate locals, from fishermen to school children, about the embattled predators. “We want to start by educating fishermen about the importance of shark conservation,…

The question is: “Do Malaysians really care about Sharks?” The answer, according to WWF-Malaysia, is disheartening: not that much. “Apart from encounters shielded by glass thicker than the Great Wall of China,” the conservationist group posits, “Malaysians’ emotional involvement with sharks has been mostly recreational or gastronomical,” it explains. In…

Water. Malaysians have a lot of it. Except when they don’t. In Selangor alone, on a weekend in late September, more than a million people at 30 locations did not. They found themselves without enough treated water for days. The cause: contaminants were discovered at the Sungai Semenyih Water Treatment…

Losing one wild elephant is bad enough. Losing seven is absolutely tragic. Yet that is the number of wild Bornean pygmy elephants that died recently at an abandoned quarry in southern Kalabakan after being stuck in mud for more than a week. The pachyderms succumbed to dehydration, stress and hunger….

Come October 16, you can run like a shark. Dressed as one, that is … in a FINtastic Fun Run 2016, organized by WWF-Malaysia at Occupy Beach Street in George Town on the island of Penang. The 5km shark-themed event will serve to draw attention to the plight of all endangered…

If the federal government has its way, seven species of sharks and rays may soon enjoy better protection in Malaysian waters. The seven species newly designated as endangered will include four species of hammerhead sharks, the oceanic white tip shark, the giant oceanic manta ray and the reef manta ray….

Chalk one up for successful law enforcement against wildlife crimes. Marine Police in Sabah scored a victory against a wildlife smuggling syndicate operating in the Sandakan area by intercepting four boats packed with 19,000 eggs of sea turtles. The seizure of turtle eggs, which would have been worth around RM30,000 on…

It’s becoming painfully evident that setting aside a few national parks just isn’t enough to save endangered species in Malaysia. Sure, there may be a hopeful-sounding number of pygmy elephants in Malaysia (FIND THE NUMBER), but if they’re marooned in separate plots of land, they either can’t find each other…

Sabah is Malaysia’s second-largest state and is, in many ways, setting an example in sustainability and environmental protection. Sabah’s laws, protections and regulation of industry have essentially turned back the clock for its extremely biodiverse rainforests – some of which are over 130 million years old. To date, the Sabah…

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Clean Malaysia is an independent online news site covering all aspects of Malaysia’s environmental landscape. We are dedicated to delivering news, analysis and opinions to both Malaysians and the international community. Our mission is to raise awareness of Malaysia as a tropical natural beauty but also to bring to light environmental dangers and encourage a debate about the future of Malaysia’s sustainable development.